SKETCH OF LUIGI GAL VAN I. 411 



the other with a muscle of a frog, caused contraction of the 

 muscle. 



Galvani recognized a great similarity between the phenomena 

 he had observed and electricity, but denied their identity. He 

 thought an electricity of a peculiar nature was concerned in the 

 manifestations, and that he had discovered the nervous fluid. In 

 his view, all animals possessed an electricity inherent in their 

 economy, which resided especially in the nerves, and was com- 

 municated by them to the whole body. It was secreted by the 

 brain ; the interior substance of the nerves was endowed with a 

 conducting power for this electricity, and facilitated its move- 

 ment and its passage through the nerves ; at the same time an 

 oily coating of these organs prevented the dissipation of the fluid 

 and facilitated its accumulation. The principal reservoirs of this 

 electricity he supposed to be in the muscles, each fiber of them 

 representing a small Leyden jar, from which the nerves were con- 

 ductors. In the mechanism of the movements the electric fluid 

 was drawn out and attracted from the interior of the muscles into 

 the nerves in such a way that each discharge of the muscular 

 electric jar corresponded with a contraction of the muscle. This 

 theory had many partisans for a considerable time, but was re- 

 futed by Volta, who showed, as has been related in our recent 

 sketch of him, that the supposed nervous fluid was only ordinary 

 electricity, to which the animal organs served as conductors, and 

 of which they might even be generators. Galvani did not yield 

 to these arguments of Volta's, but held to his own unsound hy- 

 pothesis ; and thus the glory of making a scientific explanation 

 and application of his great discovery fell to Volta. An account 

 of Galvani's discoveries was published in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions for 1793. A quarto edition of his works was published at 

 Bologna by the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of that city 

 in 1841-'42. Perhaps the best and most appreciative accounts of 

 Galvani's life and works are by M. Arago, in Alexandre Volta, in 

 the first volume of Arago's CEuvres Completes, and the eulogy 

 by J. L. Alibert, Bologna, 1802. 



Mr. A. Wilkins, of Tashkend, central Asia, had a specimen of the typical 

 desert hird of the country (Podoces panceri), which, on the first day of its life with 

 him, buried a part of the food given it in the sand with which the floor of the 

 cage was covered. On the next day, and afterward, the bird abandoned the habit 

 on perceiving that the supply given it did not fail. Another correspondent of 

 Nature had a fox-terrier puppy, seven weeks old, which had not seen any other 

 dog but its mother, that buried bones in the garden with great skill. It dug a 

 hole with its fore paws, put in the bone, pushed it down with its nose, and cov- 

 ered it with garden soil which was pushed in with its nose. He had never seen so 

 young a puppy bury bones, or any other dog do it so well. 



